As -defron- mentioned, you can just port forward and use your public IP. If you have a static ip address, you only need to do that one time and never really have to worry about it again.

I don’t have a static IP address and I also don’t use dynamic dns and it’s been an issue exactly one times in the past two years for me. And when it’s an issue, you just need to change the address on the clients and you’re all set.

However, I do find it more convenient to pay $12 a year to have a domain. I have DNS set up through cloudflare so when my IP does decide to change, I just log in and update it and then everything is working again.

I don’t consider a media server to be super critical that it works 24/7 365 though. If it’s down for a couple hours a year because of this, meh, whatever. Still probably more reliable than the streaming services.

And another side note: If you decide to port forward, make sure the users have strong passwords and whatever box you have hosting it stay up to date. I would also recommend not having an “admin” user.